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From Governing’s
Grading the Counties introductionFebruary 2002 issue
THE GOVERNMENT PERFORMANCE PROJECT
Report Card:
There has been another result as well: a vastly increased strain on the county’s resources. The jails are overflowing, and courtrooms are strained to the limits. The construction binge attracted contractors from throughout the Western states, but on large public projects, costs continue to rise and schedules fall further behind.
And roads that didn’t exist 15 years ago are congested bumper-to-bumper. To alleviate worsening traffic, the county decided to self-finance the cost of building the 53-mile Las Vegas Beltway. When it became clear there wasn’t enough money for a full freeway, the plan was modified to cut some of the freeways back to cheaper service roads. Already a portion of them need upgrades the county can’t afford, and Clark is turning to the federal government for help.
The county’s huge infrastructure demands have pressed it to develop a strong capital planning process with a 10-year horizon, strict criteria for project approval and an eye on the way projects mesh with the county’s strategic plan. To the government’s credit, maintenance — an easy line-item to overlook in times of new construction — has been kept up. A provision adopted by the county commissioners keeps funds flowing to capital projects: The county can’t increase operating expenditures by more than the combined growth of population and inflation.
The financial burdens of growth aren’t limited to capital needs; county funds are short for most services, and managers have had to work hard to spend money as wisely as possible. The IT department has reorganized its project development, for example, to make sure it isn’t buying redundant systems. County Manager Thom Reilly, upon taking office last summer, redrew the organizational chart, began a study of county efficiency and froze several pilot projects. He also began a cost-cutting effort in preparation for the hard times ahead. So far, the managers seem to be going along with his changes. “He’s collaborative and oriented to employee input,” says one. “That will be his legacy; I can see that now.”
Positives: County operates under Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, set of 10 adopted practices intended to make best use of tax dollars; strong investment planning; long-term cash and debt policies; consensus process involves board of commissioners as constructive participant in budget estimates; computer system has improved budget preparation and expedited procurement; moving contract approval from board of commissioners to purchasing director to speed up procurement.
Negatives: No formal rainy fund; limited e-procurement; no procurement cards; better budget reporting needed from IT systems.
Positives: 10-year capital improvement plan; formal criteria used to choose projects, which must support county’s strategic plan; operating expenses forecast for five years; collaborative project tracking; maintenance funding stable and adequate; maintenance backlog controlled; master transportation plan sets out funding sources for southern Nevada road work.
Negatives: Difficulty completing projects; scope of crucial Las Vegas Beltway had to be scaled back due to higher-than-expected costs, and construction of $129 million regional justice center plagued by overruns; better project-tracking software needed; inventories not detailed; no automated countywide facility-condition and inventory system.
Positives: Quick hiring at entry levels; personnel liaisons in each department facilitate communication with central HR department; diversity of applicant pool increased with reduction of testing requirements; comprehensive training programs in place.
Negatives: Hiring difficult at upper pay levels; little reward for superior performance; difficulty in terminating weak employees; acrimonious collective bargaining; no countywide workforce planning.
Positives: Center for Strategic Management coordinates countywide strategic planning and performance measurement; all agenda items before commissioners must identify link to countywide priority; annual performance reports issued; new county manager committed to process.
Negatives: Quality of performance measures varies among departments; some conflicting IT systems used to collect data; employees insufficiently trained in measurement effort; departments slow in adopting outcome measures, although measures exist for board’s priorities.
Positives: Strategic plan guides technology budgeting and prioritization; new IT planning process develops projects across departments; one system links all social service cases; good compliance with procurement standards; expanded use of interactive voice-recognition systems; disaster-recovery systems being pursued.
Negatives: CIO’s office outside the central IT department; systems need better integration; many legacy systems still in use; limited ability to receive electronic information from citizens; few Web transactions available; weak IT performance measurement; little coordinated analysis after systems implementation; conversion to Microsoft Office suite “painfully slow”; employees receive insufficient IT training.
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lark County has hit the population jackpot; it’s now the home of 1.4 million people, nearly double the number who were there 10 years ago. The city of Las Vegas mushroomed in the 1990s with the construction of dozens of new casinos, hotels and resorts. Those projects, in turn, brought a deluge of newcomers from all over the nation and the world, and they have changed the county’s demographics dramatically. In 1990, for example, Clark’s Hispanic population accounted for about 8 percent of its citizens. Now that figure is 22 percent.